MARGARET HILLENBRANDDoppelgängers, Misogyny, and the San Francisco
System:
The Occupation Narratives of Ōe Kenzaburō

Ōe Kenzaburō’s status as the left-wing conscience of postwar Japan was
consolidated long before his Nobel prize of 1994. Several works dating
from the late 1950s, however, give the lie to this radicalism and
suggest instead a tendency toward the reactionary. In particular, Ōe’s
politico-sexual series on occupied Japan—five narratives that center on
a love triangle between a Japanese youth, his prostitute mistress, and
her Euro-American patron—veer noticeably toward misogyny in their
representation of Japan under Pax Americana. Although this series of
texts purports to be a call to arms to Japanese male youth during the
intense debates over the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, a closer inspection
reveals that Ōe’s hidden preoccupation is with his female characters,
who become scapegoats for “crimes” of complicity with Japan’s conquerors
that were, in fact, extremely widespread.